As reported by: Tennesse
As a sophomore at Tennessee Tech in 1977, Jon Yarbrough turned his love for foosball into a business, placing a game table he had bought inside a Cookeville pool hall in return for a share of the profits.

Thirty years later, he leads one of the United States' fastest-growing private companies, which has grown by leasing gaming machines to casinos run by Native American tribes.The success of Smyrna-based Video Gaming Technologies recently earned Yarbrough the 2006 Ernst & Young National Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the category of media, entertainment and communications.

"He exemplifies an entrepreneur," said Vic Alexander, chief manager for KraftCPAs of Nashville, which until last year was Video Gaming's accountant. "He's faced significant hurdles in his drive to success and worked diligently to overcome those."

In 1991, two years after first starting Video Gaming with money from selling a previous business, Yarbrough ran out of money and ended up selling the technology that had been developed by his engineers. He worked a year for the buyer, then went through a period of being unemployed and depressed, considering himself a failure.

After attending a motivational seminar, Yarbrough said, he resumed a practice of reading inspirational books - a habit he had picked up during his college days as a door-to-door book salesman for the Nashville-based Southwestern Co.

"Basically, they were books that help you to believe, have faith in yourself, think positive and develop a vision," he said of titles such as Think and Grow Rich and Acres of Diamonds.

With money drawn on a credit card, Yarbrough resurrected Video Gaming. After demonstrating his products, three gaming machine operators in South Carolina put up deposits that allowed him to start producing more of the equipment.


Article By: Tennesse